Each November, one of my (seemingly) eighty jobs finds me in Orlando for a little more than a week. Sometimes, I stick around for a day or two and visit one of the parks. Lately, the allure of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – and the nearing-completion expansion – has had the Universal Parks at the top of my list. This past Saturday I was walking around in shorts and a tee shirt a half day before I would fly back to the frozen tundra that is Virginia these days. That is how I found myself being approached by a representative from NBC/Universal about test screening a new TV pilot.

Since I do have a little background into how the TV pilot process works, it was quickly apparent what the guy had in mind. There were some pre-screening questions – I was a bit worried that CliqueClack would come up and I would be disqualified – and I was then directed to the test screening room. There were two offerings at the time, a sitcom and an hour-long drama. There was obviously some selection process to decide which I would be screening, but I wasn’t privy to how it worked. It was pretty early in the process, though – there was a difference in pay between the time commitments – and if I’d known they had slotted me for the sitcom I might have passed.

Yes, I was paid for my time. It was $20 for the sitcom and $30 for the hour long. There have been a great deal many posts over the years about the challenges of writing about television for a living, and I won’t rehash what people smarter than I – and much more connected to those obstacles – have already said, but $20 for less an hours worth of work easily the best hourly rate I’ve ever had doing television related work.

So, once we had all of the paperwork sorted out, I was brought to an individual terminal and given a headset and pair of red and green buttons. There was a long series of questions qualifying my TV watching habits – the TV was touch screen with a pretty nice user interface – and then a tutorial video explaining how the red and green buttons worked (press the green button when you like something, red when you don’t). I wasn’t given any information about the show before I screened it, including the name or the network – both things I was asked about later – but immediately recognized the leads (Greg Grunberg and Diane Farr) though I remembered very little about their next project.

I won’t get into the details of what I thought about the pilot. It was a rough cut and hasn’t been released to CliqueClack – or anyone else – for review, so it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to discuss it here. Other people who participated in the screening process might, but not me and not here. Suffice it to say though, I’d have much rather watched the other show, Horizon, than what I screened (which was named Divide and Conquer). I’m not a really big sitcom guy, and the genre that Horizon falls into is right up my alley.

In total, it was a pretty interesting experience. Using the buttons could be a little awkward; how long do I hold the green button when I found something “kinda-funny” vs. “really-funny” or the opposite with the red button. How long was too long and how short was too short. I’d guess that if I were to do a whole bunch of these, their algorithms could probably define some baselines for me – or any individual viewer – but that would come at the cost of potentially burning out on watching new pilot after new pilot (I go out of my way during the summer to avoid watching more than three in a row).

After the pilot was over, I was asked a bunch of questions; a great deal many more than I expected. The way the questions were asked made certain things clear, like which characters and plot lines the network was concerned with. I was asked about the name of the show, and how well I thought it fit the show. Surprisingly I was also asked what network I thought the show belonged on (before they told us which network the show as in development at).

I’d be curious to learn just how much network executives rely on this type of data. I have written before on how amazing statistically unsuccessful they are at picking new shows. It is something I don’t really get … I think it is generally pretty easy to tell a stinker at the pilot stage (the last three years of advance pilot screeners is my proof), though admittedly it is much harder to spot a hit. I hope they are smarter than this dope at an amusement park.

A couple of weeks ago, I submitted my entry for the Annual Ted Marshall Open Television Death Pool. If you’ve never heard of it before, it’s a competition to see who can best predict the shows most likely to get cancelled in the upcoming television year. This is my first year participating, but I like my chances.

This time of year, as the new fall shows get ready to premiere, I often think back to a conversation that Brett and I had years ago. He’s long been the ratings guru at CliqueClack, and I’ve been trying to pick up some pointers from him for quite some time. In this particular case, we were wondering how the hell it is that TV executive keep their jobs. Most times, when fans make this particular statement, it is because someone somewhere had cancelled their beloved – yet underperforming – show. But Brett and I were looking at something different: how often new shows fail to see a second season.

I don’t know about you, but if I were successful at my job around 58% of the time, I’m not sure my boss would keep me around. But that is about how successful the combined broadcast networks were successful at having shows survive past their first year in 2011. When you look at two and three-year success rates, the numbers are much worse.

Let’s take a look at last season:

Of the three seasons that we’ll look at, 2011, should have the best numbers; the shows that premiered last year have only had to survive one summer to still be on the air. 42% of the shows that premiered last year are still on the air sometime this season (That’s 37 of 64). The CW looks to have performed the worst, and they benefit from not having yet made a decision — at least that I can find — about The Breaking Point yet; other than that, we’re only talking about two shows, Hart of Dixie and The LA Complex. NBC batted .500, with a fair mix of sitcoms (Whitney, Up All Night), non-scripted (Betty White’s Off Their Rockers, Rock Center with Brian Williams) and dramas (Smash, Grimm). They did have several high profile misses, though (The Playboy Club, The Firm, Awake, Are you there, Chelsea?). The Alphabet Network also had a particularly bad year with big projects, with Charlie’s Angels, Pan Am, The River and GCB not making the cut, but also saw big successes in Revenge, Scandal and Once Upon a Time.

After two years, the networks’ combined score is only 22%; that’s 36 of 46 shows no longer on the air today. ABC only has three shows it premiered in 2010 airing still (Happy Endings, Body of Proof, Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition); the other nine shows it premiered didn’t live past their first seasons. Despite what you might have heard, FOX’s Bob’s Burgers is still around, but it joins only Raising Hope as the survivors from the Class of 2010. NBC, however, easily had the worst year picking shows. That 7% represents one show, The Voice. Sure, that show’s done well enough for the network to give two cycles in a season a shot starting this spring, but that’s it. Shows like Law & Order: LA, Outlaw, The Cape, the Event and Undercovers all struggled and didn’t see a second season.

Of the three seasons we are looking at, 2009 will obviously have it the hardest to still have shows still airing, but that year manages to have done better overall than last year; 24% of those shows are still around (12 of 58). 33% of 2009 shows saw a second season (17) and 28% saw a third (14). For the purposes of these statistics, I counted ABC’s Cougar Town as cancelled, as the network did drop the show — even though it was picked up by TBS. Considering the summer start, I doubt ABC executives would have thought Rookie Blue would be the only surviving drama, leaving shows like V, FlashForward and Eastwick behind. Parenthood and Community are the only remaining NBC shows, though both have been on the bubble for several seasons. Only one of The CW’s nine shows remains — The Vampire Diaries – while Life Unexpected did stick around for a second season.

What can we learn from these numbers? I think it actually speaks to how fickle of an audience we are than true “failure” on behalf of these executives. I don’t envy their job; their successes and failures are very public, and they are dealing with millions of dollars. Moreover, we’ve seen networks like NBC stick with shows like Community when their ratings don’t necessarily support it; I’d argue that you don’t see enough of that anymore, but the fact that some networks are willing to take chances on behalf of a devoted fan-base is pretty cool.

Of course, I’d rather there wasn’t a metric crapton of non-scripted TV (read: reality) in my cable guide, so I guess nobody’s perfect.

A note about numbers: Anytime someone starts spouting numbers at you, most people would like to see where those numbers come from. I have to admit, I started with the biggest crowd-sourced databank there is: Wikipedia. ‘Ole Wiki has individual pages for each television season (2011, 2010, 2009); I started with a list of new primetime shows for each season/network and worked forward from there. Am I mistake prone? Keith and the rest of the editors will tell you that; I’m not claiming my Excel-aided math was perfect throughout. But you get the gist.

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